Friday, February 26, 2016

In
my most recent novella, He Is a Good Man, I set the story in
the Santa Clara Valley of California. When asked where is home is, Henry “Hal”
Avery replies: ““It’s on the east side of the bay, sort of opposite San
Francisco, but further south….We don’t live in town. My father has a big spread
along Alameda Creek. Like most people, we do both cattle and wheat farming.”

The locality of my hero's home in my 1866 story is today in the middle of California’s Silicon Valley.
This technological mecca which is about two hours drive from where I live is
buried under concrete, houses, and business buildings although there has been an effort to preserve Alameda Creek with the development of hiking and bike trails and changes to water and wildlife management. Although there are a still a few agrarian areas, mostly theregion is packed with people, highways and vehicles. The traffic is so dense most of the time that I avoid driving
there during the work week daytime hours.

It
was not always so. Go back 150 years and the region was oak-covered foothills
descending into the valleys next to the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay.
Alameda Creek, forty miles long, is the third largest tributary to San
Francisco Bay (after the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers). The Alameda Creek
watershed is the geographic area drained by Alameda Creek and its tributaries,
encompassing more than 680 square miles of the East Bay.

View
looking upstream at Alameda Creek in the portion of the flats of Niles
where it has emerged from the Niles
Canyon courtesy
of Pedro Xing.

The watershed ranges
from streams draining the south slopes of Mount Diablo in the north, most
creeks from Mount Hamilton in the south, and arroyos as far east as Altamont
Pass. For more information about this creek and what is being done to preserve
its migratory fish population, click HERE.

The Vallejo Flour Mill in
Fremont, California, was built in 1850 by José de Jesús Vallejo, elder brother
of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo on his Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda. A
second flour mill was built in 1856, the stone foundation of which may still be
seen today.

Vallejo Flour Mill

Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda was a 17,705-acre (71.65 km2)
Mexican land grant in present day Alameda County, California given in 1842 by
Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José de Jesús Vallejo. The grant extended along Alameda
Creek and encompassed present day Union City, Niles and Mount Eden.

In 1831, José de Jesús Vallejo
(1798–1882), the elder brother of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, inherited Rancho
Bolsa de San Cayetano from his father in 1831. José de Jesus Vallejo was
appointed administrator of Mission San José in 1837, but resigned in 1840,
after an investigation by William Hartnell, who was sent by Governor Alvarado.
Alvarado granted the four square league Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda, former
Mission San José land to Jose de Jesus Vallejo in 1842.

Following the Mexican-American
War, California was established as a territory of the United States. The 1848 Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo which detailed the terms of surrender provided that the
land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851 after
California became a state, a claim for Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda was filed
with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to José de
Jesús Vallejo in 1858.

For more information on the California Ranchos and
claims to land around the San Francisco Bay from 1769 to 1972, click
HERE.

I base my fictional supposition
that Hal Avery’s family was able to acquire land on or near this land grant
based on the information that in 1863, the Southeast portion of Rancho Arroyo
de la Alameda was acquired by Jonas Clark, who subdivided it and sold it in
1877.This area was later known as
Niles, California. The stone aqueduct built to carry water for the mill
parallels what is today known as Niles Canyon Road, State Route 84. The mill is
located at the intersection of Niles Canyon Road and Mission Boulevard (State
Route 238) in Vallejo Mill Historical Park. It is now part of the city of
Fremont.

1874 map of Niles and Vallejo Mills

Here is an excerpt from He Is a Good Man:

“I’m trying to finish the letter I was
writing to Mali last night. I told her I got shot, but it’s getting hard to
write. You finish it for me, Hal. Tell her I love her. Tell her to think of me
fondly as a childhood friend, but…go on with her life and be happy.”

Hal reached over and pried the paper out
of Joshua’s fist. He rooted around on the ground until his fingers closed
around the pencil Joshua had been using. He smoothed the crumpled sheet
reasonably flat on his knee before he read the last few barely legible
sentences in order to know where Joshua had left off and where he should start.

“Josh, what do you mean by telling her
you’ve done all you can for her future? That doesn’t make much sense.”

“That’s between Mali and me. She’ll
know…when the time comes.”

Hal shrugged and began to write, being
careful to not poke the pencil through the paper weakened by the creases
resulting from Joshua clutching it while fighting off his pain. He had almost
finished writing the words Joshua had requested when his friend, with a voice
noticeably weaker, spoke to him once more.

“Hal, you still got that other letter I
asked you to take to Mali when I die?”

“You’re not going to die, Josh. But, yeah,
I still have it.”

“And your word’s still good, isn’t it? You
won’t mail it to her, but you’ll take it to her in person. You can mail the one
you’re writing on now, and the one for my folks that’s in my coat pocket…but
the one I gave to you before…you swear you’ll take it to her yourself in
person? And you’ll do those other two things you promised to do, too?”

“My word’s good, Josh. I meant every word
I promised.” Hal fought down the surge of annoyance that his messmate would
question his honor. He turned to stare in the unfocused eyes of his closest
friend. “As long as I live to return home, I’ll do what I swore to do. I doubt
she’ll appreciate me doing the one, but I’ll give her the option.”

“Thanks, Hal. I’ll die in peace knowing
you’ll do that.”

“Just hush up about dying, Josh. What did
you write in that letter, anyway?”

“Between…me and Mali,” Joshua barely
mumbled his words loud enough to be heard as shock and the loss of blood took
its toll. “You…just take it to her.”

Zina Abbott is the pen name used by Robyn Echols for
her historical novels.

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